The UAE’s first AI GolfBots to hit fairway

On April 25 and 26 the UAE’s very first ParOne Invitational STEAMathalon will take place at The Els Club, in association with Canada’s leading Ed Tech company, Kalebr, BMW Middle East and Dubai Autism Centre.

ParOne STEAMathalon showcases a world-first, but how exactly does it work?  Open to Grades seven, eight and nine across the UAE, teams of young learners will train their very own artificial intelligence GolfBots to golf pro status, competing against other innovative learners from around the country as they traverse a custom 9-hole mini course. Alongside GolfBot’s AI model training, learners discover the magic of tolerance, express their creativity and build real, relevant and valuable interpersonal skills, while competing in a sports setting.

Expert judges, community votes and social media interaction are combined to decide the winners in categories ranging from creativity to sportsmanship to STEAMathlete pro level, with exciting prizes awarded for all the best efforts across the fairway.

Young learner teams will be scored on innovation, creativity, sustainability, positivity and their AI project as a whole. Empowering and engaging learners with 21st-century workplace skills, the grassroots premise of STEAMathalon is that learners discover, innovate, market and celebrate.

Innovation is part of the pillar ‘United in Knowledge’ of Vision 2021 which focuses on building a competitive economy. Several initiatives have been launched to help drive the UAE forward to be among the best innovation countries in the world by the golden jubilee of the union.  Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed has also declared 2019 as the Year of Tolerance, and among its aims seeks to solidify the UAE as the global capital for tolerance through initiatives and projects that spark dialogues between diverse cultures in a respectful environment.  

Many schools in the UAE and around the world wish to promote innovation as part of their core curriculum and not just as an extracurricular activity. However, successfully integrating innovation within the curriculum raises important questions such as: How to bring other educators on board? How to plan the lessons? How to assess the STEAM lessons? How to promote Tolerance? The 2019 ParOne Invitational STEAMathalon aims to promote AI x Tolerance x Sports in schools, while also demonstrating best practice on how to achieve this.

STEAMathalon introduces the future of education through competitive play-based innovation league, raising the bar for positive education, happiness, wellbeing, social impact and 21st-century skills. Designed to “future proof” students in Kindergarten through to Grade Twelve and beyond, STEAMathalon focus on science, technology, engineering, art, and math, positive education, making, coding, UN Sustainable Development goals and citizenship within the core curriculum.

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has embarked on an initiative for measuring customer’s satisfaction at four Customers Happiness Centres using smart cameras. The step is in line with the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, Dubai Government Smart City initiative, and RTA’s first strategic goal (Smart Dubai).

“The initiative aims to measure customers happiness index through smart cameras that analyse the extent of their happiness. The technology analyses the facial expressions of customers, without saving images in respect of their privacy, before and after processing their transactions at the centre. Accordingly, the technology gives an instant and accurate indicator of customers’ happiness,” said Maher Shirah, Director of Smart Services, at RTA’s Corporate Technology Support Services Sector.

The process assists in compiling reports about customers’ experiences, and accordingly enables decision makers to take appropriate decisions to improve the service if required. The initiative has been implemented in four customers happiness centres at Al Barsha, Umm Al Ramool, Deira and Al Awir.

The cameras, which are manufactured in the UAE, are highly accurate and powered by artificial intelligence technology. The camera can take 30 frames per second at a 7-meter range within an angle of 65 degrees. The camera has an autofocus feature with no flash required and can minimise the light cluster to enable accurate reading of the facial expression.

The camera has wireless and Bluetooth connectivity with a 32 MB Cache Memory, and automatically restarts in case of any failure. There is remote support for the camera to ensure seamless operation 24/7.

The system sends detailed reports on the level of customer’s happiness through an instantly updated dashboard. It also sends instant notifications when the happiness rating in any centre falls short of the predefined level through a process integrated with the text messaging and e-mails. As such, the concerned parties can take action necessary to restore customers’ happiness level.

“The smart happiness index monitors the variation in customers’ happiness level from the moment of stepping into the centre until the time of leaving and links it with the level of service delivered.”